


Mea Culpa

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Drama, Episode: s07e06 The Al Smith Dinner, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-22
Updated: 2008-09-22
Packaged: 2019-05-30 20:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15104774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Donna learns that it was never Josh who held her back.  This story goes seriously AU.





	Mea Culpa

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

  
Author's notes: **Language References** \- _Mea culpa_ \- From the Latin, \"My fault.\" _\"Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutamus!\"_ \- From the Latin, \"Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!\"

**A/N 1** \- The other \"Nick\" - see \"Old Nick\", meaning Satan. It's interesting that a Wiki-search on \"Old Nick\" brings up both Satan and Machiavelli. It makes you wonder how Niccolo's contemporaries really saw him. Anyway, both definitions fit the hook that this story hangs on.

**A/N 2** \- This originated as a post-ep for \"The Al Smith Dinner\" and then it made a sharp left turn deep into the unexplored reaches of AU-land. It springs from the fact that I still have some mad that I haven't used up when it comes to CJ and Donna's evolution as characters during the run-up to Gaza and the following two seasons. To say that I was monumentally angry with both of them was a generous understatement. I could blame the writers, but that's a zero-sum game. So, for the purposes of this story I take their behavior at face value, and tweak things to a large degree to let Josh have some vindication. Call me a Josh-o-phile, but Josh suffered quite a bit of unwarranted abuse at the hands of his friends, co-workers, and superiors over the years, and of them all CJ and Donna had the least right or reason to treat him as disdainfully as they both did. Let the spankings commence. And oh yeah, I'm still a JD-shipper...so hello, happy ending.  


* * *

**The White House, just before sunset Friday evening…**

As Leo stepped through the doors leading into the White House lobby he heard his lead agent mutter to his wrist mic, ‘Nick is in the house’. Leo smiled wryly and shook his head once again over the slightly twisted sense of humor that the secret service sometimes employed when coming up with code names. Since he’d accepted the VP nomination and suddenly had a full detail, instead of the handful of agents he’d had as COS, they’d issued him a new codename. ‘Nick’ was short for Niccolo, as in Niccolo Machiavelli. His smile broadened into an outright grin. It was flattering and funny at the same time. And it beat the hell out of being named for the other ‘Nick’. He’d have to get a copy of “The Prince” and put an inscription in it for Ron Butterfield. Knowing Ron, he’d hem and haw about accepting a gift from a protectee, but that was tough. He’d take the gift even if Leo had to have his detail hold Ron down so he could shove it in his hand. 

He paused to soak up the ambiance in the foyer and take measure of how he was feeling….which was tired, but good. He was glad to be back, if only temporarily. So much history had passed through here, both his own and that of the nation. Turning he began a slow walk along memory lane on the way to his old office. Margaret had left him a voice mail days ago stating that there was still a box of his crap parked in her office, and could he please come and get it before the cleaning staff got tired of working around it and tossed it in the trash. He figured that he’d better tie up loose ends before he moved on completely to this new chapter in his life. It was very late in the afternoon, but the offices were still bustling with activity. He took a circuitous route through the offices, pausing in communications to accept congratulations from the old staff members, and giving Bonnie and Ginger a hug before moving on, only to pause again in Operations. Of all the faces there, only Ed and Larry were familiar. There were so many changes. It saddened him even as he shook their hands and they wished him well.

Finally he glanced at his watch and realized that he could put it off no longer. He’d intended to just pick up his stuff and go, but the President had gotten wind of his visit and lo, a fifteen minute hole had miraculously appeared in a packed schedule and he’d been informed that he was summoned to the Oval Office. Funny how different that summons looked now that he was on the outside looking in. 

He walked to Debbie Fiderer’s office with his detail in tow and paused to tap on the door frame. 

Debbie looked up and grinned. “Since when do you stand on ceremony around here? Get in here.”

Leo grinned back and walked over to hug her. “Since I stopped working here. Even if we manage to pull this off, I *still* won’t ever work in this building again, other than as an advisor.”

Debbie pulled back and looked serious. “You might, god forbid.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” he responded. “Is he in?”

She nodded and walked over to the door to the Oval. Knocking she heard ‘Come!’ and stuck her head in. “Mr. McGarry is here, sir.”

“Well send him in!” Jed said in a loud and penetrating voice.

Leo walked into the Oval to see Jed getting to his feet and limping towards him with the help of a cane. “Leo!” he said with a grin as he threw him a bear hug. “How does it feel now that the full horror of your choice has settled in?”

Leo tried to look properly terrified by his status as a candidate, and failed miserably. “Uncomfortable, Mr. President.”

Jed laughed aloud. “I imagine it does. You have no idea how many times on the first campaign, when you were haranguing me about my role as a candidate; I wished that I could see you hoisted by your own petard. And here you are, eight years later, finally granting my wish.”

“I think that you should thank Josh and Matt Santos for that, sir.”

Jed Bartlet frowned. “Don’t blame them my friend. You could have said no. And if you ‘sir’ me just one more time I’ll have Curtis pummel you for me, since I can’t do it myself at the moment.”

Leo smiled warmly at his old friend. They’d dreamed dreams together and made a good number of them come true in this very room. Come to that they’d shared a few nightmares here along the way as well.

Jed squeezed Leo’s shoulder. “Let’s get something to drink. I haven’t had my one allotted alcoholic beverage for the day yet.”

When Leo nodded, Jed limped over to the credenza next to the chief of staff’s door and poured Leo a San Pellegrino with a wedge of lemon and handed it to him before building himself a scotch and soda. Leo took a sip and grimaced.

“You know what the worst thing about being an alcoholic is? Everything that you *can* drink is absolutely tasteless. Nearly ten years later and I still remember the taste of Oban single malt, aged in the barrel, like it was yesterday. I can’t even *cook* with wine anymore.”

Jed frowned. “Would you prefer that I….”

Leo shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s like a vegetarian forbidding his family and friends to eat meat around him so that he can avoid the temptation of good sirloin. Go ahead, and drink up.”

The President took a sip and nodded towards the nearby partially closed door. “Are you going to see her while you’re here, or are you just going to sneak in and sneak out like you were planning to do with me?”

Leo snorted. “Like that was ever gonna happen. Margaret told her I was coming. If I tried a stunt like that they’d have to double my detail. The last thing I need is her detail throwing down with my detail because she’s pissed.”

At that moment they were interrupted by the sound of raucous female laughter, hastily cut off, floating through the door from the chief of staff’s office. 

“What is she throwing a party in there?” Leo said.

Jed shook his head dolefully. “A little bird told me that Donna Moss was seen in the building.”

Leo winced. The Sisterhood.

Jed caught his friend’s expression and gave a sympathetic nod. “Yeah. Best to leave it alone and hope that Abbey or Zoe don’t show up to make it worse.”

They both stepped closer to the door, listening to the rise and fall of female voices.

Leo grinned and whispered hoarsely, “Which explains why we’re standing here like a couple of teenagers eavesdropping on our parents.”

Jed snorted quietly. “Yeah.”

Then came CJ’s voice, speaking a little louder than before. “You said that you were waiting for a spatula? Oh, that’s too good!”

Jed frowned. “A spatula?”

He looked at Leo in surprise as he reached out and firmly, but quietly, drew the door closed. “It’s all over the campaign offices. That spatula thing is about Josh. He refused to hire Donna a while back, and she did an end run around him to Lou Thorton. The Congressman had given Lou complete autonomy from Josh, something that he never should have done, and she used it to hire Donna. Josh was massively unhappy about that and wasn’t shy about showing it. Word in the offices is that Lou threw the two of them in a room to have it out and Donna put the spurs to him pretty hard for holding her back all those years. He’s been sorta down ever since.”

Jed gave a concerned frown. “Really down? ‘Call Stanley’ down? Or he’s just got the blues?”

Leo shook his head. “The last one. But it may turn into ‘Stanley’ situation if something isn’t done about it soon.”

“Why doesn’t he just tell her?”

“You know how he is, Sir.” Leo paused as Jed waved an admonishing finger. “I mean, Jed. You *know* how he is. He won’t pass the buck, even when he should. Donna’s ridden him pretty hard since before Gaza, with CJ cheering her on, and Josh never lets out a peep.”

Jed sighed and took a long sip of his scotch. “Well someone should speak up before this goes too far, if it hasn’t already. I should have said something a long time ago.”

“It wasn’t your place, Jed. It was my call, and the staff was my problem.”

“Yeah, but once I found out, I signed off on it.”

Leo sighed. “That thing about not passing the buck? Josh didn’t get that from his parents. Oh, he got the beginnings of it from his folks like any good kid. But that thing with the unyielding stupidity he learned from me. And he takes it further than I would because he never wanted to disappoint anyone on anything, ever, which is why it hurt him so badly on the rare occasions when he did let anyone down. His guilt complex acts like an amplifier.”

Jed nodded and finished his drink. “So…shall we flip a coin for the honor?”

Leo followed suit with his lemon water and shook his head. “Nope, it’s my job. I came here thinking that I should tie up my loose ends before I really got deeply into the campaign, and this is pretty big loose end. So, my call, my job.”

He stepped over to the door and paused as he heard Jed chuckle softly, almost to himself. He turned and saw a vaguely sad expression on Jed’s face that was at odds with the laugh. “We never stop paying the price for the right to serve, do we?”

“No sir, we don’t.”

This time the President didn’t admonish him because he knew that the moment between two old friends had passed. Maybe when he was finally out of this place…. Jed shook off the thought. The last thing that he wanted was to do was succumb to maudlin short-timer syndrome. So he shook off his passing moment of melancholy, grinned at his friend, and said, “Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutamus!”

Leo snorted. “I ain’t dead yet, sir.”

Jed laughed. “So says the guy in the B movie right before the monster eats him.”

“Well there’s no monster behind *this* door, sir.”

“Sez you,” Jed responded as he walked back to his desk. “Go on, tempt fate. I’ll make sure that you get a lovely funeral.”

Leo grinned back before opening the door, stepping through, and closing it behind him.

************************************************

As he had before, Leo knocked on the door frame. CJ looked up and gave him her thousand watt grin.

“Leo! I didn’t expect you for a while yet,” she said.

Donna, obviously in good spirits, jumped up and sprinted over to give him an enthusiastic hug, which Leo returned with equal fervor. It was likely to be the last such hug that he ever got from her, so he was going to make the most of it. In many ways this office was cursed for him. So many dark deeds had originated here. Even though his purpose in doing them had been noble, the deeds themselves still blackened his soul. The particular deed that he was about to address may have been one of the smaller ones, but it had hurt the most. Nick, both Nicks, would have been so proud. 

He looked at CJ over Donna’s shoulder and said, “The President and I finished up early, so I thought that the three of us could talk.”

CJ caught the odd undertone to Leo’s words, and frowned. “Talk about what?

Leo let Donna go and shrugged. “Oh, whatever. For instance, what was it that had you two cackling so loudly before I came in here?”

Donna winced. “You heard that?” She looked pointedly at CJ and said, “See, I told you that we were too loud.”

CJ winced a bit herself as much for what led to Donna’s words as she did for the subject of Leo’s question. She knew somehow deep down that Leo wouldn’t care for the subject matter of her and Donna’s conversation, since Josh was the closest thing to a son that he’d ever had; though somehow she had the feeling that, that was the point of his question.

Donna was so pumped up the she missed the nuances that her radar should have caught as she said, “Oh I was just telling CJ how I flummoxed Josh again today.”

Leo’s let an eyebrow rise. “Oh?” he invited her to continue.

Donna paused. Apparently her radar wasn’t completely offline after all. “It was about me taking another victory lap in my ongoing defeat of the glass ceiling that Josh had me under for all those years.” she replied cautiously.

Leo nodded. “Uh huh.” He turned his back on them for a minute and stood looking out the window before allowing his shoulders to slump a bit. He felt like he had no choice but to go ahead and let the chips fall where they may.

Leo’s reaction disquieted Donna. “Leo? What’s the matter?” she asked.

He sighed. It was time to bite the bullet. Without turning around he said, “About that glass ceiling. That really wasn’t Josh’s fault.”

There was silence behind him, and when he turned around both women were looking at him with their mouths open.

CJ’s mouth closed and her eyes narrowed a bit, not in anger so much as in thought. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying Leo?”

He cocked his head. “If you think that I’m saying that, with the eventual full knowledge and approval of the President, I deliberately suppressed Donna’s career at the White House, then yeah I’m saying what you think I’m saying.” He looked sadly at Donna who was regarding him as if she’d never seen him before and said, “I can explain, and I hope that once you know why you’ll understand. I love you kid, like you were my own daughter, but when you sit where I sat, where CJ sits now, you see things differently. I had no choice but to keep your wings clipped for quite a while.”

Donna had fallen back into her chair as if her legs could no longer support her. “For godsake why, Leo? Why would you do that to me?”

“I’ll second that,” CJ said. “I thought we were Democrats around here. I need a good reason not to have Donna march down to the Counsel’s office followed by a trip to HR to file a complaint against this White House.”

Leo nodded and walked over to crack the door to the outer office so that he could make sure that Margaret was nailed to her desk. Fortunately she was nowhere in sight, which was even better. Closing the door, he locked it and locked the other doors, with the exception of the door to the Oval. There would be no interruptions.

He walked over and dragged a chair in front of CJ’s desk so that he could sit where Donna could see him too. “How’s your schedule CJ? This may take a while.”

“For this it’s clear until I say otherwise,” she answered curtly. “Now what the hell were you just talking about?”

Leo gave her half-hearted attempt at a smile. “Did you ever learn to play chess with the President?”

She shook her head. “No, I never had the time. So I took a page from the President’s book and drafted some ringers. And what does that have to do with you playing games with Donna’s life?”

“That’s a pity. It’d help you understand my reasoning a bit better. You see, it’s about strategy. In chess the peak of strategic maneuvering comes with making one move serve multiple goals. Taking your opponent’s piece to stall his attack is easy. That’s tactics. But pure defense doesn’t win the game. For that you need strategy. Strategy lies in taking your opponent’s piece at a time and place that will set him up for what you’re going to do to him with your next move, or the move after that, or ten moves after that.”

CJ nodded impatiently. “Okay, I get it. Strategy. What does that have to do with…”

Leo cut her off. “You took the China summit away from Josh. Why?”

CJ looked nonplussed. “Because of the flag flap. Because it was the right thing to do.”

“Why? Josh was your friend. You knew that it wasn’t his fault. I knew that it wasn’t his fault. The President, the Press, and for godsake even the Chinese certainly knew that it wasn’t his fault. But you cut him off at the knees, hurt him, humiliated him in the eyes of official DC, and to some degree made his job that much harder…and very probably contributed to his decision to leave the White House. So why?”

CJ looked thunderstruck at Leo’s accusation. “But…you approved it.”

Leo smiled gently. “Well leaving out the fact that you shouldn’t have required my tacit approval for anything at that point, I want you to articulate why you hurt your friend like that. I already know why. I want to see if you do.”

CJ sighed. “International diplomacy is a whole other game from regular politics. The Chinese had no real grounds to be offended. The Taiwan thing may be a thorn in their paw, but it’s a damn small one when taken against the summit agenda. They knew damn good and well that it was the work of a few hotheads who managed to sneak that flag past us and that said hotheads never stood a real chance at resolving the Taiwan issue in their favor, but they gave China an excuse to *act* offended to gain leverage for the summit. And Josh was the fulcrum that their lever was resting on. When you sit in this chair, friendship sometimes takes second place to expediency. I *had* to remove their leverage, and the easiest way to do that was to remove Josh.”

Leo nodded. “That’s exactly right. You learn make choices with your head and not your heart, which is one of the reasons why you’re in that chair instead of Josh. Not the entire reason, but a big part of it.”

Donna broke in angrily. “Are you saying that stifling my career was a political move?”

Leo winced internally, but kept his game face on. “More or less. Again, one move served many goals.”

“Oh I cannot *wait* to hear this,” she said with a mixture of anger and sadness in her voice. “We trusted you Leo. I trusted you.”

Leo nodded. “And I trusted you too, far more than most staffers at your level…but only up to a point. And that point shifted back and forth quite a bit through the years.” He decided to change course for the heart of the matter and addressed them both.

“Did you know that I had the entire senior staff under surveillance whenever they were off-campus back during the MS thing?”

CJ looked at Donna who shook her head, and then she looked at Leo numbly. “No,” she said faintly. “I didn’t. Why did you think that you had to do that? Didn’t you trust us?”

“Of course I trusted you, like Donna, to a point. But that point wasn’t fixed and immovable anymore than hers was. And during the MS investigation, when we were juggling eggs while riding roller skates on a greased log over the flaming mouth of hell, that point could be found right outside the door of this building. Back there and then I trusted you inside this building, and no where else. We were out to keep that man next door alive as a President. If we’d avoided impeachment only to have him so smeared by the investigation as to be helpless for the rest of his term, let alone winning the *next* term, we would still have chalked it up as a loss. A total loss. He’d have been an instant lame duck and we would have spent the rest of his term sitting in our offices making paper air planes for all the impact we would have had on the country. I didn’t come here to do that and neither did he.” Leo paused for breath and then went on. “I had to conserve our political capital for the big stuff. And that meant seeing to it that we didn’t have to spend any of it saving anyone from their own stupidity. Like sleeping with a call girl, or messing with red-headed reporters…”

CJ interrupted hotly. “Leo I would have never…”

Leo tried to look conciliatory. “Calm down CJ. I know you never and in retrospect you probably should have at some point, though not back then. But like I said, and like you know, in that chair you don’t take chances.” He shifted his eyes to meet Donna’s. “I couldn’t take the chance on anyone doing something stupid…like having a one night stand with the Majority counsel for the House Oversight Committee.”

Donna turned deathly white. “He told you?” she said faintly, and then her voice strengthened as her face flushed as she grew angry. “I can’t believe that he told you. Of all the petty, self-centered….”

Leo held up his hand. “Whoa there Xena. Simmer down. I assume that you’re talking about Josh.” At her angry nod he went on. “Well he didn’t tell me anything.”

“Wait a minute,” CJ interjected as she looked at Donna. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you apparently slept with Cliff Calley.”

Donna looked ashamed. “I can’t believe that I did either, now. It was stupid. But he was cute, I was lonely, and…and…and it just happened.” She looked at Leo. “You’re saying that you killed my career because of that? Because I made a mistake? And if Josh didn’t tell you then it would have to have been Cliff.”

Leo shook his head. “Wrong on all counts.” He got up and went to CJ’s refrigerator and rooted around until he found a bottle of water. Taking a healthy swallow he sat back down. “For one thing, I didn’t kill your career. I just kept it trimmed a bit. It was Nancy McNally who saw you out on what I assume was your one and only date with Calley and she knew a security breech in the making when she saw one, so she gave me a call that night. She knew you on sight, and she recognized Calley from her dealings with Ways and Means when he was over there. Up to that point I only had tails on the senior staff. After that I had *all* of the senior assistants tailed as well, including Margaret.” He sighed with regret. “I’d like to point out that dating a man who was working for Ways and Means was a major faux pas in and of itself, considering what Josh was working on at the time, but I figured that your common sense would keep you from making a second date, and that once you told Josh about it that his anger would be enough to keep anything like it from happening again. I didn’t take into account that idea that you’d sleep with Calley without a second date, and *after* he shifted to Oversight no less.”

Donna looked like a ghost. “You mean there were people….”

“Watching and listening, yes,” Leo’s face was set like granite now. “I was *not* a happy man. In fact I was personally pretty disappointed in you.”

Donna nodded. “Not as disappointed as Josh was,” she said faintly.

CJ snorted. “I can imagine.”

Leo shook his head. “No CJ, I don’t think that you can.”

CJ regarding him cautiously now. She could tell that there was more to the story. “What exactly are you talking about?” She threw Donna an apologetic look. “While that was a pretty damn stupid thing to do, it wasn’t enough to justify crippling her career.”

Leo nodded. “You’re right. That wasn’t the end of it though, was it Donna?”

“No,” she said, looking ill. Leo handed her his water and she took a swallow before handing it back.

“”It’s okay Donna,” he said gently. “It’s over and done, and hopefully you learned something from it.”

“I was so scared,” she said.

“I know you were,” Leo responded. He drew a breath and sighed. Turning to CJ he continued. “The night after Donna’s testimony before the committee, with guess who as lead counsel, my guys reported a three-way meet between Josh, Donna, and Calley in a public place. Something changed hands. It was your diary, wasn’t it Donna?”

Donna began to cry softly. “Yes,” she managed to get out.

“I’m sorry kiddo, I really am, to dump this on you after all this time, but back then we had bigger fish to fry. However, now we need to talk about it, if for no other reason than to get the two of you to lay off kicking Josh around for something that was never his fault to begin with. And besides, you deserve the truth.” He looked back at CJ. “The shotgun mic was hosed that night and my guys couldn’t hear much of the conversation, so I got my hands on the deposition transcripts and went over them myself. That’s when I saw it. Donna testified that she didn’t have a diary and Calley had the recorder do a read back. She perjured herself.”

CJ stared at Donna in amazement. “For godsake why, Donna? What the hell were you hiding?”

Donna’s tears had died down to sniffles. “It was stupid, okay. It was a reflex action. I didn’t want anyone reading my private thoughts. They were mine. There was nothing actionable in there. I just…lied to protect my privacy.”

Leo looked sympathetic. Back then Donna still hadn’t absorbed the lesson that veteran politicians accepted as second nature. That being that privacy was a relative term, depending on who wants to know what, how much pressure they can bring to bear to get the information, and how they can spin it once they’ve got it. 

“There was a lot about Josh in there, wasn’t there?” he said. 

Donna nodded miserably.

“Thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams,” he went on. 

“And a few nightmares too,” she added. “I don’t want you to think that I was protecting Josh. I wasn’t, not completely. I was protecting me. Oh there was some thought for him too. It would have been mortifying to him to learn that your assistant had been pining for him since the first week that he hired her. Or what she’d written about his flaws and weaknesses. The GOP would have torn him to pieces.” She sniffed mightily. “It certainly would have embarrassed *me* into quitting.”

“It very nearly got you fired,” Leo added sharply. Donna looked up and when she saw that he wasn’t kidding around she looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Ask CJ and I think she’ll give you the same answer. Josh should have fired you the instant he knew about the perjury. He should have had you out of the building before the close of business that day and notified Oversight and the Counsel’s Office of the breech. He didn’t. And had I known what he was planning before he actually went and did it I’d have fired you both, which is what I told him when I chewed him out over it after the dust settled. Any other time I might have been inclined to exercise some latitude, but not there and not then. The stakes were too damn high. However, by the time I knew enough to act, the deal was done. So I kept my mouth shut and let things lay as they were. But, regardless, three things resulted from that deal. One was that you, Donna, for a very long time afterwards, weren’t going to rise any higher than you were in this White House. You showed extremely poor judgment, not once, not twice, but three times in same incident, and hence you were seriously untrustworthy. Another was that Josh was never going to sit in my chair as long as Jed Bartlet was President.”

Donna looked up horrified. “You blocked Josh’s career because he saved me?”

Leo shook his head. “Well, there were other reasons later on, but on that occasion and for a long time after it, he was going no further. Not that he wanted to. And it wasn’t that he saved you. It was *why* he saved you and what he was willing to risk to accomplish it.”

“He was my friend,” she whispered. “He was angry with me, but he was still my friend back then.”

Leo chuckled wryly. Quiet as it was, it was a jarring sound in the otherwise somber atmosphere and it startled both women. “I think that somewhere under all that self-inflicted angst he’s still your friend, but no kiddo, that wasn’t it at all. Under similar circumstances I’ve allowed friends to go down without a fight, and so has Josh.”

She frowned. “What about the drugs and the booze? He fought like hell to keep you safe when Lillianfield and Claypool came hunting.”

“I hadn’t broken the law. I’d bent it some, but that was just embarrassing for me, my family, and the President. I wanted to resign to prevent that particular annoyance, but even though the President wouldn’t allow it, that’s all it was in the end. A simple annoyance. Your mistake on the other hand was potentially lethal given what was happening at the time.”

CJ snorted. “I’ll say, but you said that three things resulted from that mess with Calley. You’ve only mentioned two.”

Leo glanced at CJ grimly. “As for that third thing, Josh sold his soul to the devil that night. For as long as Josh has a career in politics, Calley will have a club with which to beat his brains out if he needs to, and Josh knew that going in. I didn’t want a man with that particular chink in his armor sitting in my chair, advising my President. I dragged Jed into this kicking and screaming, I owed it to him to see his best interests served.”

Donna shook her head vigorously. “Cliff is a good guy. He wouldn’t…”

“Oh yes he would,” Leo said, cutting her off. “For all I know he’s a prince among men. But he’s also a player, a political operative. In this business people and circumstances change all the time. You know that, Donna, or you should. You’re a player now too, and hardly a babe in the woods. The day may come when Calley’s back is to the wall and he’s desperate for a win on some key issue. Desperate enough to gamble. And on that day he may play ‘Samson in the Temple’. He’ll offer Josh a game of chicken. If he does, Josh will have three choices. Risk running a bluff at high stakes, roll over for him, or kiss his career goodbye. And that’s leaving out the probable consequences for you.”

CJ looked horrified. “Why in god’s name didn’t you say something when I hired him, Leo? Putting him in Josh’s old office, in his job, must have been like heaping salt on Josh’s wounds.”

Leo shrugged. “It had no bearing on the fact that you needed a competent deputy. And besides, once he was here, I talked to him. I let him know that I knew, and that I had the dirt on *his* involvement tucked away someplace safe. If Josh ever goes down over this, Calley will go with him. Then or now, pissed at him or not, I’d never knowingly leave his back uncovered like that. He damn near gave the ‘last full measure of devotion’ for his right to serve my guy. I’m the one that dragooned him into it. I owed him, and I owed it to Noah to protect his son. As for Josh’s wounds, he’s a grown man. He understands how the game is played. You haven’t seen him falling apart over it yet, have you?”

CJ sighed. “Okay, but I’m still going to apologize to him if I can ever get him to hold still long enough. I’d like to think that he still sees me as a friend.” She paused in thought, and then went on. “Which begs the question of why. Why do *you* think that he protected Donna, if not for the sake of friendship? Was it purely politics?”

Leo stared at her with an amused look. “Oh come on CJ. This is taking plausible deniability a bit far, don’t you think? Cards on the table. You know as well as I do that he was in love with her. Probably since before Rosslyn and most certainly afterwards.”

Donna choked. “In love with me?”

Leo’s eyebrow rose. “You really didn’t know? You never caught a clue? Not in all those years that he spent sabotaging your dates when he could and moping like a whipped puppy when he couldn’t? The way that, aside from Amy, he hardly ever seemed to date at all, like he was waiting for something…or someone? He was a hot commodity. He could have had a different woman every week, and he never did. You couldn’t even see it after he hopped a flight to Germany with nothing but the clothes on his back?”

“He never said anything. I asked to see him before my surgery and he never said a word.”

Leo shook his head despairingly. “They say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Let me give you your first lesson in Martian 101. The man hasn’t been born who can comfortably stand before the woman he loves and plead his case while her current lover is there too, pitching the woo all over her. And being Josh he’d rather die than make a fool of himself.”

“Colin wasn’t my…” Donna began only to have Leo wave her down.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Leo interrupted. “Trust me when I say that you don’t want this discussion. It will embarrass the hell out of both of us, we’ll end up shouting at each other about it, and you’ll lose anyway, so we’re not having it. If you want to call him “your most recent” as opposed to “your current”, I’m fine with that, but lets not split hairs over what constitutes a boyfriend. This isn’t Junior High and I don’t have the patience. Anyway, Josh would have figured that he was too late, and he was probably hoping for the earth to open up and swallow him at that point. Or maybe for a nice freak lightning strike.” 

Donna was looking sick again. “But he stayed.”

Leo nodded slowly. “Yes he did. He loved you.” He turned to CJ and said, “That’s really why you’re in that chair. Because, at the end of the day, Josh will do anything that he can for Donna. He’d even use the power of his office and risk the welfare of the administration to protect her. He walked out of the White House in the middle of an international incident to be with her. If I hadn’t let him go to Germany, he’d have resigned and gone anyway. When push came to shove, Donna would always come first, no matter who he had to hurt. No matter how much he had to hurt himself. And that CJ is why you can’t possibly imagine how much Cliff Calley’s mere existence disappointed Josh. It hurt him, bone deep. Badly enough to lead him to commit his own stupidity with Amy Gardner.” 

Donna looked like she tasted something bitter. “You mean that he started seeing Amy to get even with me?” she asked.

Leo shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Josh is a reactive, tit for tat kind of guy. His standard MO is ‘Hurt me or those that I care about, and I’ll hurt you back’. But I don’t think that he could ever knowingly try to hurt you. He’d rather have cut off his own right hand first. No, I think Amy Gardner was his attempt to get over you. To turn you back into just his assistant.” Leo sighed. “It didn’t work worth a damn.”

Donna had gotten over her initial shock and suddenly looked thoughtful. Leo was right about Josh needing to strike back at people who hurt him, but he was wrong about him being unwilling to hurt her back. Thinking back, her disastrous interview had vengeance written all over it. It hurt her to imagine that she’d finally provoked him enough for him to see her as his enemy. “You said that there were other reasons. Reasons for keeping us both in a box together.” She glaring again. “It’s going to take me a while to forgive you for that.”

Leo nodded, accepting her anger as his due. “Yes, there were. For one thing, you were never just his assistant. You were his right arm, his conscience, his sounding board, and the best part of his soul. And he knew it. So did I. So did the President. And unless I miss my guess, so did CJ, Toby, and Sam. Without you he wouldn’t have been half as effective as he was. As it is, because of you, people will remember Josh “The Pitbull” Lyman for a very long time as the most effective DCoS ever to hold his position in the White House.”

Donna swung on CJ. “You told me to quit, that he’d never let me go on his own. You told me too…”

CJ sighed. “I suspected that he had feelings for you, yes. But, despite what Leo thinks, it was damn hard to tell. I had no clue what *sort* of feelings they were. Everyone says that he has a lousy poker face, but when it really counts, the only person who could ever read him was you and apparently he could fool even you when he had to. Had I known for sure, I would have been a little less free with my advice about your love life. I wouldn’t have hurt him like that for the world. But I stand by my advice on your career.” She was glaring at Leo now too. “My problem was that I didn’t have complete information. Had I known I’d have shooed you out the door years before then.”

Leo cocked his head and smirked a bit. “And that is why you didn’t have complete information. Only I did.”

Donna had bowed her head while CJ was speaking, now her face snapped up looking horrified. “You said that the president knew. How could he look at me knowing trouble I’d almost caused?”

Leo smiled gently. “Donna, he’s a father and he sees you as a surrogate daughter. Do you think that his blood daughters haven’t hurt him, or disappointed him? Do you think that he’d love you any less?” Leo smile blossomed further. “It took Josh quite a while to get it through his thick skull that I wasn’t going to promote you. I’m pretty sure that he had other reasons than the well-being of your career on his mind.” Leo’s eyes were glinting a bit now with suppressed deviltry. “But don’t hold that against him. The President got involved a couple months after H. Con. 172 passed. Josh had tried to promote you out of his office several times, and I torpedoed him every time. Then he thought he’d get cute and do an end run around me straight to the President. He floated you as a candidate for Mrs. Landingham’s job. For what it may be worth, the President was ready to tell you to move your stuff into her desk that very day, but then he discussed it with me and came around to my way of thinking.”

Donna blinked as her eyes teared up again. “He really wanted me?”

Leo nodded. “Yes he did. But I want you to bear in mind that I had to consider what was best for the administration.”

“Which wasn’t me,” Donna said bitterly.

Leo looked pained and said, “Yes and no. Remember, one move, many goals. Yes, it kept you away from a more sensitive position, but more importantly it kept you *with* Josh. Like I said, you two were symbiotic. You were both one half of the same job description. And as time wore on you were the only thing holding Josh here.”

“Oh come on Leo, Josh loved his job. He loved serving at the pleasure of the President. It had been his dream since he was a kid,” Donna countered in disbelief.

Leo closed his eyes and looked a little sad. When he looked at her again, he wasn’t seeing her. His focus was on the past. “Yeah he did, in the beginning. Even the MS didn’t dim his passion much. But as time wore on it was more about loyalty than love.   
Josh doesn’t have a disloyal bone in his body, and his word is his bond. The few times that he’s been forced to break it nearly killed him. I have no doubt that he loves the President, and me, but we did things that didn’t set well with him. The way that we didn’t support him after the Carrick thing. The assassination of Sharriff. The way the trade bill screwed American workers. It all took its toll. He knows that politics is about compromise, but he didn’t like some of our compromises. And over time he liked them less and less. But he was still the best strategist around, and the President needed him, willing or not. So if loving his job wasn’t enough to make him stay, then proximity to something else that he loved would have to do.” His focus shifted back to the present as he raised an eyebrow at Donna. 

Donna looked torn between embarrassment and anger. “So I was what? Live bait?

“No. You were one half of the team, and his motivation for staying,” Leo responded. “So don’t get too upset with me for holding you back. I held you both back by arranging for you to hold each other back. Because I needed him right where he was and I needed you with him to keep him there and to keep him effective….the fact that, that kept you from advancing to places and jobs that I might not trust you with was just a happy coincidence as far as I’m concerned. And besides, after a while any lack of trust was the lesser issue. Barring the Reese thing, you’d managed to show considerable discretion and initiative. What was important was keeping the team together.” 

Donna was glaring with true anger now. “Well it didn’t work, did it? Eventually I left, then he left. You failed.”

Leo smiled gently. “How do you figure?”

“But..but..I left.”

Leo nodded. “Yes, you did. It was time for both of you to go. After Germany it became increasingly clear to me over time that you’d both changed too much to go back to the status quo, but not enough to find a new equilibrium. And professionally it was becoming progressively less healthy for both of you. Had you stayed you’d have ended up hating everyone here, not just Josh. And Josh would have ended up an empty file; a burnout taking up space in a perfectly good office, because he couldn’t have what he really needed.” He paused for a moment then went on with a gentle smile. “So, did you like Charlie’s résumé spiel? The kid should have been an actor.”

CJ frowned. “What the hell are you talking about Leo?”

Leo noticed the look of startled comprehension on Donna’s face. “I should let Donna tell you.”

Donna’s glare was back in full force. “He manipulated us yet again. He sent Charlie to me to plant the idea that a good boss had an obligation to their subordinates to help them move on to bigger and better things when they were ready. Charlie said that the President didn’t want him to ‘hold his coat’ for the rest of his life, so he was showing him the door once he graduated.”

Leo nodded. “And he was my guy. Don’t blame him though. He could see the stalemate as well as I could. Charlie always was more perceptive than people gave him credit for being. That’s what made him so good at his job.” Leo paused again and scratched his chin a bit before going on. “The thing is, it was time for you both to go. You couldn’t stay any longer or it would have ruined you. If I had gotten heavy-handed and forced the issue it would have been worse. I couldn’t fire you both because I wasn't the COS anymore, and I couldn't have CJ do it without telling her why, so I had to shove you both out of the nest without appearing to do so. There was also the fact that none of the leading contenders in the Democratic Presidential field had the necessary gravitas to beat Vinick, let alone being worthy to walk into the Oval office and sit in Jed Bartlet’s chair without inviting a lightning strike straight from the hand of the Almighty Himself.”

Donna stared at him with a calculating look. “You know, I always wondered about that. You and Josh were so secretive there at the end. Then suddenly there he was, out there on the campaign trail, pushing his dark-horse up the hill. At first I thought that he was doing it to spite me. To get even with me for leaving and going to work for the Vice-President, and he’d never made a secret of his contempt for “Bingo Bob”, but then I remembered that you two were as thick as thieves before I left. You told him to go, didn’t you?”

Leo started laughing. “Oh Donna, you give me too much credit, you’re the only one who could ever get away with telling Josh Lyman to do anything outside the chain of command in this building. Not even his mother could do that. She could nag all she wanted to, and all he’d do is dig in his heels. If she’d had that kind of power he’d have quit after Rosslyn, married you, and you’d have four kids by now. Here he had to obey me. Outside of here, not so much, as evidenced by the fact that he wouldn’t tell Santos to withdraw from the race…not even when I ordered him to. All I did was set up the conditions. One move, with many goals again. You had to leave for your own good and so did Josh, and in his case it was for the good of the Party and the country as well, but the dumb kid wasn’t going to leave here until you did.” His laughter slowed to a satisfied smile. “All I did was prompt Charlie to nudge that first domino. Then I sat back and waited for them fall. It was a close run thing, but really the timing couldn’t have been better if I’d planned it. I’d watched Josh’s face when he talked about Santos. I was certain that he’d found his guy. The only thing that was a real gamble was whether or not he’d say the hell with it and finally follow his heart by chasing after you. If he’d done that all bets would have been off. I bet that his pride and anger would stop him, and I was right. Once you were gone, he was on a plane to Houston almost at once. If he couldn’t follow his heart romantically, I knew that he’d follow his heart politically.”

Donna flushed painfully at that last line. Her mind was a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. Embarrassment over being a fool. Anger at Leo for the pain he’d caused both her and Josh. Wonder at the fact that she’d apparently missed so much of the real Josh Lyman for all those years. Regret at the pain she herself had caused him. Self-deprecating amusement at being played so easily by a master. And strangely enough, much to her surprise, there was gratitude. She was grateful to Leo. Had he not done what he’d done, she might never have summoned the courage to go out on her own, no matter how much it had hurt her and Josh in the process. And she was also grateful to him for finally telling her the truth.

And the truth shall set you free. She was free at last to…..

Donna paled as the last year and a half replayed itself in her head from Josh’s perspective. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to hire her. Just being in the same building with her must be a constant source of suffering for him. An hour ago that wouldn’t have bothered her that much. Now the thought was intolerable. The façade of the new Donna Moss cracked wide open and her old self emerged to stand blinking in the harsh light of self-examination. That side of herself that she’d ruthlessly suppressed since her return from Gaza. The self that loved Joshua Lyman more than her own life. 

“Oh my God, I have to resign,” she said aloud.

Leo and CJ both sat up sharply. 

“What the hell are you talking about Donna?” CJ demanded. 

“CJ, he doesn’t want me there, and now I know why. I’ve hurt him so badly. You have no idea. When our paths crossed on the campaign trail I never missed a chance to snark him and twist the knife. When he refused to hire me for the campaign he hauled out quotes from my press briefings for Russell. And he was right to do so, at least a little bit. I was meaner than I should’ve been or had to be in my briefings, simply because a strike at Santos was a strike at Josh. I wanted to hurt him.” Her face twisted into a mask of self-recrimination. “Didn’t I succeed brilliantly? I can now join the ‘People Who Like to Hurt Josh Lyman Club’, right next to Chris Carrick and Mary Marsh. They’ll be so proud of me.” She was glaring at Leo again. “Leo, I know that you thought that you were doing the right thing, but God, how could you stand silent and let me treat him like that?! I may forgive you for everything else, but not that.”

Leo smiled sympathetically and held up his right hand with three fingers extended, and then began to tick off his points of argument on them. “Number one, I’m sorry. As sorry as I can be, but it’s a choice I’d make again if I had to. Two, you can’t quit. For better or worse, you’re now the face and voice of the Santos campaign. If you quit, you’ll gobble up whole news cycles with stories speculating on your reason or reasons for leaving. So, you’re stuck. Three, he doesn’t hate you Donna. It only hurts him because he thinks that *you* hate *him*. If I had to guess I’d say that he loves you more now than he ever did, because you’re within his reach and he can’t touch you anymore, not even as a friend.” 

Thinking about their ‘walk and talks’ and the way his hand used to feel on the small of her back, Donna’s eyes had begun to glisten with unshed tears and she lifted her hand preemptively to wipe them away. “We’ll see about that.” She jumped to her feet and snagged her purse, still wiping her eyes and sniffling. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to…”

“Go to him,” Leo finished. “And when all is said and done tell him that he can take a chunk out of my ass if he wants to, but the day may come when he has to make the same choice.”

Donna regarded him sadly. “Leo, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I screwed up so completely that you felt that you couldn’t trust me. I’m sorrier still that you held Josh back because of it. But you should have just told us.”

Leo shook his head. “That was never gonna happen, not until now anyway. I needed Josh, he needed you, and we needed you both. Had you known you’d have been both angry and mortified. You’d have quit, then Josh would have quit, and then where would we be? I’m not going to second guess myself at this late date. That way lies madness. I did what I did because I had to. I may have blackened my soul a bit more because of it, but that’s the way it is. But for what it’s worth, I really am sorry that it hurt both of you so much in the process.”

Donna nodded jerkily and sniffed. “Don’t do it again, or you’ll never see our kids. I’m still mad at you, plenty mad, but I’ll get over it eventually. The thing is, Leo, Josh may be faced with the same choice someday, but he’d never *make* the same choice. I know him well enough to know *that*.” She looked at her watch. It would be well after dark by the time she reached Santos Headquarters, even if she left this instant. “I’ve got to go. If I’m going to do this it has to be on his turf. I have to catch him at the offices.”

CJ stepped around the desk to hug Donna. “Good luck,” she whispered. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry too, for butting in, but only half sorry because it caused you to go out and do yourself proud.”

Donna was turning to head for the door when a knock as the connecting door to the Oval Office stopped her as the door swung open and the President stuck his head in the room. He made a quick survey of the room and its occupants. “Well, no blood on the walls, no yelling or screaming; and no bruises or broken bones. It must have gone all right then.”

Donna looked like a frightened fawn. “Sir…I…I mean…I’m sorry I….you knew that I…”

“Donnatella, someday when I’m out of this gilded cage, you and I will have a long talk about human frailty. Until that time remember the mess that I created when I omitted to mention my multiple sclerosis during the first campaign. We’re all very proud of you here.”

Donna regarded him solemnly as he stepped close to her and hugged her, and she hugged him back. 

“I have to go sir. I have to see a man about a thing.”

Jed smiled with mischief in his eyes.. “A thing, eh? A big thing or a little thing?” 

Reflecting the President’s mood in her own watery smile she answered, “Oh, a big thing sir. The biggest.”

“If you need to, which I doubt, tell my former deputy that he has a choice. He can make nice, or a couple of Secret Service agents will be over to collect the body part of my choice tomorrow.”

“I’ll save that as a last resort, sir, and thank you,” she said as she broke the hug.

“Good, now scram,” he said. “You have miles to go before you sleep.”

“Call me, one way or the other,” CJ added.

“I will,” Donna said, and then she was gone.

Jed glanced at Leo. “I want to see you before you go.”

Leo nodded. “Yes sir.”

With that Jed vanished back into the Oval and closed the door.

CJ and Leo regarded each other for a long moment, and then CJ spoke.

“So I was your second choice.”

Leo snorted. “No, after the diary thing you were my first choice, and in the end you were the right choice.”

“I couldn’t have done what you did.”

“You haven’t played chess. Didn’t I tell you to play chess with the man? That wasn’t just for his sake. It was for yours too.”

“I don’t mean that. Well, actually I do. I’m not that sneaky. What I mean is, I couldn’t have made that call. They’re my friends.”

“Yes you could CJ, you already have. Remember the summit?”

CJ sighed. “So, you’re a son of a bitch, and I’m just a bitch, period.”

Leo winced and looked unhappy. “If that’s what you think then that’s what you think, but you’re wrong. You’re the White House Chief of Staff, like I was before you; and, god willing, like Josh will be after you. Don’t second guess your humanity, kid. It gets a little bruised sitting in that chair, but it’s still there, just like mine is. As long as you still know right from wrong, even when you have to sometimes do wrong in order to make the right things happen, they won’t revoke your union card.” 

CJ sighed. “I can’t *wait* for Santos to win the damn election. Speaking of which, don’t you have to go help out with that? I have, you know, stuff to do.”

Leo was grinning again and gave her a hug. “I know when I’ve been dismissed. Tell Margaret that I’ll pick up my crap on the way out. Now I’ll go see what your boss wants, and then beat it. Hang in there Claudia Jean, it’s only for a while longer.”

“G’night, Leo.” 

Then he was gone too, through the door into the Oval Office.

**Two and a half hours later……**

There were far fewer people at the offices of the Santos campaign, when she finally reached them, than there were during the normal daytime madhouse of a presidential campaign office. And that suited her just fine. The late hour had thinned out the staff, down to a few diehards; workaholics, one of whom was bound to be Josh. It had taken her longer than she’d imagined it would to shower and change. She’d chosen her make-up, perfume, and clothing with the studied care of a general marshalling her troops for battle. Now she was wearing an older outfit from the back of her closet, one that harked back to their halcyon days in Operations. It was less “power suit” than her wardrobe usually was these days, and she hoped that the sight of something familiar would give her a foot in the door. Here and there some of the people who were working late nodded quiet greetings to Donna as she passed by, but she didn’t stop to talk. She was on a mission. One that would either end very well, or would leave her looking for a new job; no matter what Leo said. She wouldn’t stay where she wasn’t wanted. Not now. If she owed Josh nothing else, she owed him a measure of peace. So she nodded back at the few people who greeted her and cut a straight line for her goal. Of all the people in this building, *he* would be here. He was always the first one in and the last one out of a fight.

His door was open, the overheads were off, and there was a dim light from his desk lamp suffusing the inside of the office. She paused a minute, then summoned her courage and stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind her. He was exactly where she thought he’d be. Jacket off, tie undone, collar open, shirt sleeves rolled up, and hunched over stacks of memos and a sea of polling data. For a brief moment she was stricken with a wave of nostalgia followed just as surely by a wave of guilt. How many late nights had she seen him exactly like this? Tired and worn, but still burning inside to get just one more iota of work done before exhaustion finally claimed him. Her absence from his life hadn’t helped matters either. Without someone to rein him in it was a wonder that he hadn’t killed himself with overwork. And truth be told, she hadn’t really been absent from his life. She’d been there right along, but instead of being by his side she’d been just another voice in a faceless mob of detractors, making his job that much harder…..

Some inner awareness must have warned him that he was no longer alone, because he suddenly stirred, running his hand through thinning yet still curly and unruly hair. He looked up at her, blinking owlishly as he attempted to refocus eyes that had really needed reading glasses *before* she’d left him. That was another thing that she added to her mental ‘to do’ list, assuming that he ever let her do anything for him again. She could tell the exact moment that he realized that it was her, because his expression shifted from that look of bemused innocence that he wore in unguarded moments to one of hardened indifference. Only a few hours ago she would have seen her ability to provoke that reaction by her mere presence as a twisted sort of triumph, now it just hurt.

“Oh, it’s you. Do you need something?”

Unable to make her voice work she just shook her head.

Josh studied her for a long moment, seeming to sense that something was off, but then he almost visibly seemed to shake it off. “Well, if you’re hiding from someone, could you find someplace else? Another office, the ladies room, or a nice supply closet even? I’m working here.” Dismissing her he looked back down at his work and shifted some papers, trying to look busy.

Donna cringed at his brusque dismissal, but summoned her courage and turned back to the door. She locked it, then she walked over to one of the visitors chairs in front of his desk and sat down, holding herself rigidly upright. Despite his efforts to ignore her, she could tell that Josh was aware of her movements. She was still tuned to him. Even after everything that had happened, after all her efforts to amputate him from her life, she could still read him. Because of that she could see the anger and frustration building. She gave a deep sigh. It was time to bite the bullet.

“I’m sorry.”

Josh gave a frustrated groan as he swept a hand through his hair and flopped back in his chair to glare at her. “What part of ‘I’m working here’ did you not understand? If I pulled something like that on you, you’d castrate me. And what are you sorry about?”

Donna looked away for a moment then met his eyes straight on. “You want a list? I’ll start with Cliff, Jack, and Colin. Then, let’s segue into my leaving you flat twice and finish up with all the shitty things I’ve said to you and done to you the last eighteen months.”

Josh snorted with sardonic amusement as he regarded her skeptically. “Wow. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but that’s a lot of territory to cover there. Even allowing the self-evident fact that the gomer parade was never really any of my business and throwing in the fact that I wasn’t always a nice guy myself, and assuming that I believe you, what brought about the epiphany that produced this rather stunning little confession?

Donna felt her emotional control slipping. She had to hurry. “I was at the White House today, visiting.”

Josh nodded. “I heard on the grapevine. And how is the esteemed Chief of Staff? Is there any clue as to when I can expect her next shot at the campaign’s kneecaps?”

Donna swallowed convulsively. “She’s fine. The thing is, Leo came in while we were there and we talked. About a lot of things. Or rather he talked and I listened.” She looked away and her voice fell. “I wish you’d fired me.”

Josh sat up abruptly. “I didn’t want to hire you if you recall. And I can’t fire you. You’ll have to see Lou about that.”

Donna jumped up abruptly and started pacing. “Godamnit Josh, why do you always have to be so freaking obtuse. Don’t you get it? Leo told me everything. He told me how you tried to promote me, and how he always shot you down. And most importantly he told me why. He told me that he knew about Cliff and my diary, almost from the beginning. He told me how I screwed up and we both paid with our careers.”

Josh paled and deflated suddenly. “He told you that? He shouldn’t have done that.”

“Yes, he did, which is something that you should have done yourself.”

Josh’s expression firmed up. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does,” she shouted. “Why couldn’t you tell me that my career was dead in the water with the Bartlet administration?”

“Because you’d have left, damnit. You would have left sooner, and you’d have been right to do so.”

“And why did that matter? I was just your assistant! I could be replaced. Why did it matter!?”

“Because!” he shouted back as he surged to his feet, his face suffused with anger. “Because you weren’t just my assistant! Because I needed you! Because you weren’t replaceable! Because five years of feeling the way that I have the last ten months would have killed me!” Just as quickly as it had come, his anger left him, and he just looked. . .wounded. “Because I miss you, and the thought of missing you this way for that long was just something that I couldn’t stand. It terrified me. The simple thought of missing you was more frightening than anything I’ve ever faced in my life, including Rosslyn.”

Donna sighed and her voice softened. “Did it ever occur to you that even if I left, you wouldn’t have to miss me? That we’d still see each other.”

Josh shook his head and sat down. “The biggest part of this last year says that you’re wrong.”

Donna stopped pacing and walked slowly over to Josh. He looked panicked like he was about to retreat. This was the moment of truth. “I know. And that’s as much my fault as it was yours, if not more. I didn’t feel like I had any options left, like there was anything left to hope for. That’s what I was missing. Hope. So give me something to hope for Josh.” She took a deep breath. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

Josh’s panicked look faded and a little of his old cockiness reasserted itself, as he smirked suggestively. “Really Donnatella, do you think that’d help?” 

Damn it, why did he look so irresistibly sexy when he was being…him. Donna stepped forward and knelt in front of him, invading his space. Hello, he was looking panicked again.

“You idiot. I mean, you tell me how long you’ve been in love with me, and I’ll tell you how long I’ve been in love with you.”

Josh gaped like a fish. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. It closed, opened again, and then closed.

“Josh, you’re doing a very entertaining impression of a guppy, but that’s not what I’m here for. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. No matter who I dated, no matter who I was with, you were always there in my heart. I think you always will be. Even the last ten months, when I convinced myself to be angry at you, you were always there. Don’t you think we’d better do something about that?”

Josh looked down then back up at her as he spoke with a voice soft with wonder.. “You love me? Like ‘love me’ love me.”

She nodded, and then raised an inquiring eyebrow.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t know when it happened. It wasn’t until after Rosslyn that I knew what it was, but it was there for a very long time before that. I just never imagined that you would….” 

“Shut up.” That confession was all that she needed. She surged forward and kissed him. Gently at first, then more deeply as the passion began to grow. Her arms slid around his neck as, without breaking the kiss, she crawled up into his lap, his arms sliding around her waist pulling her into him. That was their undoing. As she leaned into him, the chair over balanced and tipped over backwards. Donna gave a startled shriek as they both were dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

Josh stared at the ceiling a moment and then he spoke. “Well, *that* was predictable. Someone up there hates me.”

Donna laughed and rolled over onto her side, curling up against him. “Let them. It doesn’t matter as long as someone down here loves you.”

Josh looked at her quizzically. “You know, it’s going to take me a while to get used to that idea.”

“I’ll remind you if you forget.”

He grinned. “By the way Donnatella, I love you too.”

She sighed. “I know that…now. I wish I’d known before I quit. Before Gaza. Before Amy. Before Cliff. But I know now, and I’ll never forget.”

He pulled her close and kissed her. “Let’s go home. We have a lot to talk about.”

Donna scramble to her feet and helped him up. “I thought that you had work to do.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Donnatella. There’s nothing on that desk that’s more important than what’s next to me right now.”

Donna grinned. “And what might that be?”

Josh rolled his eyes before scrambling to his feet to grab his jacket and book bag. “Come on Donna. Let’s get out of here. We have a lot of ground to cover tonight.”

“Miles to go before I sleep”, she murmured as she took his hand, locking their fingers together. Neither had to tug the other along as they left the office moving in unison, their stride evenly matched. Donna’s heart clinched a bit as Josh dropped her hand, only to swell a moment later as she felt his hand settle on the small of her back, as it had in a time that now felt like it had been a thousand years ago. That simple act was like rain on parched ground.. Donna sighed deep in her own soul. She was back. It was back. They were back. And god willing they’d never leave this place in their hearts again.

 

**Three Hours Later……**

Donna stirred sleepily against the man whose arms were wrapped so firmly around her. The intimate friction of skin on skin stirred the banked fire that seemed to be smoldering low in her abdomen. She could hardly believe it, but she was pretty certain that she was going to have to wake Josh up shortly to make sure that fire didn’t consume them both….or perhaps to make sure that it did.

They’d made it in the door of Josh’s apartment, but everything after that had been a blur of caressing hands, searing kisses, and the sound of tearing fabric. The talking? No, not so much. Yep, she’d have to raid Josh’s wardrobe tomorrow morning, because her blouse had definitely seen better days. It had died in a noble cause, but it was now fit only for polishing furniture. To be fair, Josh had come off much worse. His shirt was lying in three separate pieces between the apartment door and the bed that they’d ended up in, and while the memory was hazy she was pretty sure that she’d had at least one orgasm before they’d gotten there. And she didn’t even want to think about what she’d done to his pants when that damn zipper had gotten stuck. She hadn’t imagined that she could have been that strong. Donna smirked contentedly, rubbing her cheek against Josh’s chest. It was a wonder what a human body can do with the proper motivation. Placing a tender kiss on the right side of his chest, followed by another, and another as she shifted to reach the scar bisecting his sternum, she licked her lips to get the taste of him. It was heady, it was spicy, it was manly, and above all it was Josh. And the fire in her belly leapt a little higher.

After worshipping that scar for a moment longer she turned her head towards his sleeping face, intending to wake him with a kiss on the lips, Sleeping Beauty style, only to find herself staring into a wide awake pair of warm brown eyes. Eyes that had the same heat smoldering in them that she could feel building deep in her body. Not put off a bit she feathered gentle kisses on his face, ending with a lingering kiss on his lips.

His arms tightened around her as he smirked ever so slightly. “I wouldn’t mind waking up like that every day, for the rest of my life.”

Donna smiled. “I was surprised to find you awake. You crashed pretty hard after…after we…”

“…made love,” he finished for her as he flashed a grin that seemed to take years off of his face. “Oh, I’ll be the first to admit that you wore me out, but I defy any man alive to stay asleep, or in a full out coma, when Donnatella Moss kisses him. It’d violate a fundamental natural law or something.”

She chuckled softly and kissed him again, before laying her head on his chest again. “A natural law, huh?”

Josh stroked his hand down her back gently, marveling at the feel of her skin under his fingers. “Yep, “Lyman’s Law”. No sleeping when Donnatella Moss kisses you.”

Donna raised her head again so that she could see his eyes, and kissed him again. “Then I think that it’s only fair to add “The Moss Corollary” to that particular law. “No slacking when Josh Lyman is available to be kissed.”

Josh grinned again. “I can get behind that,” he murmured as he pulled her into a kiss that deepened rapidly as he rolled them over. They made out for quite awhile, kissing, touching, nibbling, and exploring. And inevitably they made love again. Afterward, tired and spent, but not yet sleepy, they lingered cuddling with each other, soaking in the wonder that had happened in the last few hours. There were no words, merely the occasional happy sated sigh. When the day had begun, neither of them could have imagined that this was where they would be when it ended. After a long while, Josh broke the silence.

“I love you.”

Donna shuddered deeply as the power of those words rolled over her. It wasn’t the first time that he’d said them, but it was the first time that she knew beyond all doubt that they were real.

“I love you too.”

Josh sighed. “I loved you back then too,” he said, knowing that she knew what he was saying. “But not enough to do what was right. I should have set you free.”

Curled up against him she shook her head in negation. “I wasn’t ready back then. Not for this. And I wasn’t ready to be free. I was wrong when I told you that I meant Will was my teacher. Not just wrong factually, I was wrong emotionally. You taught me so much. Back then I was still learning. I was learning right up to the day that I quit. You couldn’t give me something that I wasn’t ready for. I had to take it for myself when the time was right.”

Josh sighed. “I just wish….”

“What?”

He tightened his arms around her. “I wish there had been a way, a way to have this. We’ve both hurt ourselves and each other so much because we couldn’t have this.”

Even though he couldn’t see her face, she smiled, slowly and softly rubbing her cheek against his chest. “We have it now Josh, and we never have to do without it again. We never have to hurt, or be hurt again. And if we do, by some random act of stupidity, manage to screw it up, we can talk it out now. We’re free to talk now, about anything, and now that I have you, I’m never ever letting you go again.” 

He kissed the top of her head gently, inhaling the lavender scent of her shampoo. “That’s good, because it nearly killed me to let you go the last time.”

“It killed me to go.”

“It didn’t feel like it.”

She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes. “A fat lot you know Joshua. I went home and cried for hours. Then I took a shower, fixed my face, and went on my first job interview. But I was sick for days afterward.”

“I’m sorry.”

She laid her head back down. “Don’t be. I told you, you couldn’t give me what I had to take for myself. If you had given it to me, it would have been meaningless. It would have been you, saving me again. I had to save myself.”

Josh couldn’t fight sleep any longer, and gave a jaw cracking yawn, which caused Donna to chuckle.

“Wore you out again, didn’t I?”

Josh sighed. “What can I say? I’m a middle-aged guy with a hot nubile young lover. You’re always going to wear me out.”

Donna rolled off of Josh and onto her side, inviting him to spoon up behind her as sleep began to dim her senses too. “Then I’ll have to make sure that you eat right, exercise, and get plenty of rest,” she murmured softly, “because I want more nights like this one, a whole lifetime of them. And, oh yeah, if you refer to yourself as middle-aged again I’ll clout you in the head.”

“I’ll do my best. I still wish we’d…”

Donna snuggled back into his embrace. “If wishes were fishes, we’d never go hungry.”

Josh stilled himself and kissed her shoulder tenderly, enjoying the feel of her in his arms. “Mea culpa, Donnatella, mea culpa,” he murmured as sleep finally claimed him again.

Donna smiled as his slow regular breathing lulled her towards sleep. “Me too Joshua, me too.”


End file.
